Ipsos revenue growth flat for third quarter

The company’s revenue for the first nine months was €1.2bn, a decline of 4.3% from the same period in 2017. Cumulative organic growth was 1%.

Ipsos blamed the sluggish growth on what it termed ‘temporary distractions’: the implementation of its ‘Total Understanding’ reorganisation project and the acquisition of four of GfK’s custom research divisions.

Revenue from the Americas fell by 1% over the first nine months of the year and 2.9% in the third quarter. Ipsos attributed this decline to ‘mediocre’ macro-environments in Latin America and US consumer-packaged giants reducing their spend on market research.

Asia-Pacific saw 6.5% growth over the nine-month period, and a growth of 8.9% in Q3, while the EMEA region grew its revenue slightly by 0.5%, with a decline of 1.2% between July and September.

The company has changed the way it structures its business lines into audience segments: consumers; clients and employees; citizens; and doctors and patients. Organic growth for the first nine months of the year was centred on the ‘citizens’ segment, which the company says reflects its opinion and social research business line.

In a statement, Ipsos said: “Despite the still-present changes affecting the research market, despite the ever perceptible effects of the implementation of the Total Understanding project and the efforts made for the successful induction of teams and activities acquired from GfK, Ipsos is looking forward to a fourth quarter that will show an improvement over the third, even though overturning results recorded over nine months in just three months may seem complicated.”